Slightly crazy and ambitious project, imagined by Kévin Ginisty and inspired by his own adventures, including the PCT in the United States.
The project took shape thanks to the little boost of confinement, to the small team of passionate volunteers (Kévin, Thomas, William and Dylan) coming together under the name Hexatrek association and to the crowdfunding filled by the enthusiastic walkers, the sweet dreamers and the friends of the great outdoors.
Thus was developed and set up the first long hiking trail in France ; Remarkable 3000 kilometres, linking the Vosges to the Pyrenees (or vice versa), cumulating 136,000m of elevation gain passing through innumerable mountain ranges .
Spring 2022 heralds the start of the season and with it the first edition of this adventure. All the dreamers and lovers of challenge putted on their backpacks to take their turn on the trails.
In the south, the team of pioneers, accompanying Kévin on the departure from Hendaye, left on June 15th. He thus embarked on his adventure, welcoming new pioneers every week, section after section, while screwing the Hexatrek badges on the course, and going to the meeting of all the actors and locals who can get involved, join or simply encourage the project.
On the other side, departing from Wissembourg, Thomas alias Cartapouille, took the lead in early May, taking with him a string of badges in his bag ready to cover the paths for us hikers who will soon be setting off, one way or the other, with dreams in our heads.
The Hexatrek is a very nice way to cross France on foot, on already marked paths that invite us to dream.
is to follow this invisible line linking 14 natural parks, allowing you to sleep outside, under the stars, in the mountains or in the forests.
It's a new way to combine nature and culture, and to let yourself be disoriented, bewitched by this country that I know so well and yet so little.
It's a challenge, sporty for some, mental for others, challenging and motivating. A need to escape, a return to the source, an injury to healing, a funny summer, something to fetch maybe, and for sure, a new door open to wonder.
My best moment, I think, of the whole hike. It was crazy to be there, surrounded by so many hikers from all over the world, to walk the GR10, and challenge yourself during the summer.
It brought together everything you would expect from a wild and preserved massif; a sky full of stars, exciting encounters, frozen rivers and lakes to throw yourself into, and elevations to swallow to end up exhausted at the end of the day.
It was exhilarating to see the trail change as we walked. From starting in the ferns with a heavy heat that is almost unbreathable at times, among the semi-wild horses and the typical villages of the Basque country, to ending under the scorching sun and the hot stones of the Canigou on the est side, passing through all sorts of reliefs and greenery of the forests and valleys of the Central and Ariege Pyrenees.
It was perhaps a little harsh to start directly there, to have to do vertical drops every day without losing pace, to not really give time to the tendons and joints to get used to slowly but it was worth it to be able to share this part of the journey with so many people encountered on the trail, in the heart of the season.
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Finally, we return to a flat ground, we can go on much longer days, and let ourselves slide, rock, by the sections of roads and small paths.
The South is my home, the place where I grew up, my hinterland, I was looking forward to reaching certain sections, eating fruit, picking figs from the trees along the way, bathing in the gorges during afternoons that were too hot to hike on the asphalt.
The South it's small massifs all different, beaten by the winds, with a lot of small villages, with narrow streets and refreshing fountains, with modest farmers market in their center where, by pleasant surprise and lucky star, you can sometimes get supplies on.
It was much quieter, much milder, there was food almost all the time, places to rest and take a nap if the desire took us. We cross this section with a lighter bag, filled water bottles and feet in the water, sharing the hot nights, along forest roads, with the wild boars.
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The Alps, woh, it was breathtaking, it was challenging, it was amazing.
I had never found myself in a place where one feels so far from everything where the mountains that surround us find themselves taking up all the space and where one can feeling so small.
The lines of the rocks, the glowing colors they took on at the end of the day, the passes to cross one after the other, the rocks, the refuges, the endless descents in the valleys, that was everything, it punctuated our days, it was once again the great adventure, and we simply felt lucky to be there.
The Alps are magnificent! Everything is bigger, more intense, it requires more supplies, we spend more time away from everything and at the same time we find ourselves again in contact with many hikers and mountain lovers.
We were lucky to have access to some unguarded shelters left open, which sometimes brings such precious comfort, and the bad luck of a sudden cold snap, which prevented us from completing the entire traversal. The cold and the snow during the month of September made most of the passes impassable.We should have taken a substantial break in the hope of being able to pass later with adapted equipment despite a greater danger. Which for a first experience in the high mountains seemed too complicated to us, and might have prevented us from reaching the end of the journey.
There will be a section of the Northern Alps, which is still waiting for us and which I hope to be able to cover in the summer in better conditions.
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It got off to a rather bad start in the Swiss Jura, as for many other walkers, the weather was very capricious! We felt lucky until then to have most of the time dodged the rain, during this scorching summer, but the precipitation we escaped, we paid for it in heat and lack of water, and once the Jura is reached, it's as if the rain has suddenly caught up with us.
It was early fall, it was green, humid, and foggy. It was several days of crossings in the mud and dung under downpours, with nothing else to fix than the comings and goings of our feet. It was long, it was boring and boring but we knew we would eventually see the end of it, that it would eventually stop, maybe one day.
And then there was the rest of the trip,the Doubs and the Vosges, it was surprisingly very beautiful. We were lucky enough to cross them with the golden colors of autumn while others were finishing their journey in the Pyrenees, also caught up in the rain and not without difficulty.
I did not expect to be so surprised and amazed by this mountain range which does not look like much in the northeast of the country. For me, it represented the cold, the greyness, and the humidity, and I had no idea under my layers of prejudice that these forests could shelter so much beauty.
It was a delight to finish our last hundred kilometers in this way, to immortalize the last moments, the last bivouacs, the last picnics, to swap the harshness mountains against the peace and tranquility of the forest and it was a nice way to end up. quieter, more introspectivly, we finished this section almost in backwards.
The Vosges, it's an easy part, in which you let yourself be rolled, or you can take the time to contemplate and I think it's a very good idea to start with this section even if it's a shame to miss the colors we have seen. It was in the Vosges that I understood the passion that people can have for autumn, it represented it well, it was soft, colorful and bright and everything was so different from where we started a few months earlier.
This is where our journey ended, in front of this mailbox, which had welcomed all the Hextrekeurs of this first edition 2022, containing the testimonies of the first departures and the last arrivals. It was early that morning in the rain that we finished this hike in joy, without really realizing what we had just experienced, everything we walked, and everything that happened.
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I wish you to browse it, for a section or all of it, in one rush or over the years.
Put on your shoes and hit the trails.
Come and discover France and all its diversity or have fun rediscovering it again and again from so many unexpected angles.
Go and enjoy being carried away by a long hiking trail.
I hope you find this article helpful. Don't hesitate to contact me on my socials medias, for any questions, it's with pleasure that I would exchange on this topic and the others.
This is the official site of the Hexatrek for more information as well as my articles on (vegan) food and the gear during the hike.
Wonderful adventures to all!
